This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Learn More.

REMINDER

Any content, information, or advice found on social media platforms and the wider Internet, including forums such as AP, should NOT be acted upon unless checked against a reliable, authoritative source, and re-checked, particularly where personal health is at stake. Seek professional advice/confirmation before acting on such at all times.

What grinds your gears?

Absolutely sure! The Jaguar XF, until the 2016 model, wasn't available with a clutch and even now manual models of the XE and XF are rare with none available for the XJ.

Click to expand...

My car has stop/start and what is described as a robotised manual gearbox - or flappy paddles to the rest of us, as well as an auto setting. And yes, it's taking your foot off the brake that restarts the engine, along with -most bizarrely - opening either front doo.

As far as I recall the indicator on the A35 was a sort of knob-with-a-tail (a Boris Johnson?) on the dash, in the centre. Twist the tail left for left and right for right. A mechanical timer "self cancelled" after a while if you didn't cancel it yourself.

R.

Click to expand...

Brings back memories, my first car, replacing a Royal Enfield motorbike (with a duff gearbox) was an A35 (van). Bought used it only had 40,000 mi!es on the clock, but a complete rust bucket. The half shafts had a tendency to shear off, so I used to carry a scrap yard spare! Experienced severe brake fade somewhere in Scotland, resulting in rounding a tight bend on the wrong side of the road , fortunately nothing coming towards me. Moved on to a Singer Chamois, rear engine, with difficult to fit spark plugs, and even less reliable than the A35. Recall replacing the engine in the street when there was snow on the ground. Happy days?

Brings back memories, my first car, replacing a Royal Enfield motorbike (with a different gearbox) was an A35 (van). Bought used it only had 40,000 mi!es on the clock, but a complete rust bucket. The half shafts had a tendency to shear off, so I used to carry a scrap yard spare! Experienced severe brake fade somewhere in Scotland, resulting in rounding a tight bend on the wrong side of the road , fortunately nothing coming towards me. Moved on to a Singer Chamois, rear engine, with difficult to fit spark plugs, and even less reliable than the A35. Recall replacing the engine with snow on the ground. Happy days?

Click to expand...

This was the thing with these English cars - they were poorly engineered rust buckets. When the government here allowed the import of used cars from Japan, in the 1990s, the quality of cars improved markedly.

This was the thing with these English cars - they were poorly engineered rust buckets. When the government here allowed the import of used cars from Japan, in the 1990s, the quality of cars improved markedly.

Click to expand...

Yes the British cars of the era left much to be desired, but the early Japanese models were not fault free either. The name Datsun, probably brings a shudder to many a spine, possibly better engineered than some UK models, but equally rusty. True however that lessons had to be learned from the Japanese on many things engineering, particularly in connection with quality control.

Things have moved on tremendously since then, our Fiat Punto (not a marque normally associated with reliability!), sold at 7 years old and 140,000 miles, was still running as sweet as a nut, and with minimal rust.

Seems most bizarre. Is it actually supposed to be like that, or is it suffering from an electrical fault?

Click to expand...

So, what other action would you suggest to restart the engine on an automatic? There is no clutch and, on the Jag the park brake releases automatically. The accelerator may present a few problems as you don't want to start the engine with the throttle open.

So, what other action would you suggest to restart the engine on an automatic? There is no clutch and, on the Jag the park brake releases automatically. The accelerator may present a few problems as you don't want to start the engine with the throttle open.

Click to expand...

Opening a door seems a strange choice, does it not? A button in a convenient place would do the job.

Yes the British cars of the era left much to be desired, but the early Japanese models were not fault free either. The name Datsun, probably brings a shudder to many a spine, possibly better engineered than some UK models, but equally rusty. True however that lessons had to be learned from the Japanese on many things engineering, particularly in connection with quality control.

Things have moved on tremendously since then, our Fiat Punto (not a marque normally associated with reliability!), sold at 7 years old and 140,000 miles, was still running as sweet as a nut, and with minimal rust.

Click to expand...

Datsuns and other Japanese cars were probably even more rust prone than home produced products, given the cycle of cars in Japan, where the roads were not salted and cars had to all intents and purposes a short planned life cycle, which meant that rust protection was not used, not a problem there but certainly one here. A friend had a Datsun Bluebird from around 1977, they went on holiday and when they returned the car had a flat tyre. On jacking the car up the bodywork rose and the wheel stayed firmly on the ground, the whole of the floor structure was completely rotten, the car was five years old and due for an MOT test. Needless to say it went for scrap.

Before you judge the driver be aware that Jaguar have designed their "Eco Stop/Start" system to shut the engine down when the vehicle stops and to restart when the brakes are released. Using the park brake, and thus releasing the foot brakes, results in the engine restarting. Yes it is a poor design. The fact that the Highway Code suggests that this is poor practice is ignored.

Click to expand...

Sounds as though |Jaguar have not got it right - my current Nissan does the stop / start bit so well that one forgets it is in us

If one thinks that BL were largely incapable of competing against the Japanese carmakers, it seems even stranger to me that GM, Ford and Chrysler - who either owned or have had a significant amount of involvement in carmaking outside the US- are still incapable of producing a small 'home grown' car with less than a 2 litre engine in it! There was however that 'aberration' the Nash Metropolitan, marketed my Hudson, (which became part of AMC but that didn't last long ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_Metropolitan#Astra-Gnome

If one thinks that BL were largely incapable of competing against the Japanese carmakers, it seems even stranger to me that GM, Ford and Chrysler - who either owned or have had a significant amount of involvement in carmaking outside the US- are still incapable of producing a small 'home grown' car with less than a 2 litre engine in it! There was however that 'aberration' the Nash Metropolitan, marketed my Hudson, (which became part of AMC but that didn't last long ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_Metropolitan#Astra-Gnome

Click to expand...

They could probably produce it, but would the Americans actually buy it? At one point the UK Hillman Avenger was sold in the US as the Plymouth Cricket, which did not sell well, only VW seem to have had success with smaller cars there, perhaps with the same perception of German quality as is seen here.

In the US, VW during the 1960s ran it's incredibly successful and iconic advertising campaign for the Beetle, promoting the value of small cars for the baby boomers which resulted in Americans associating the word "Lemon" with poor quality cars and products, due to the campaign's famous tagline "We pluck the lemons, so you get the plums."

Complete change in subject; What's been annoying me for the past 2-3 days is that whenever I go to the BBC website, the dratted thing goes automatically to the bottom of every page! I seem to only get this problem if I'm using Google Chrome, as I also have Oprea installed and that doesn't do the same thing. Anyone here what going on?

I have been watching this on catchup, and grit my teeth every time he goes to talk about temperatures. Leave that for the Americans. It wouldn't take an extra 5 minutes to put in the narration cuts for American measurements if that's what they want, but this is the damn 21st century, wake up and smell the Celsius.